Poll: Plurality now wants “balanced” approach to deficit reduction
Forty-five percent of Americans now say they favor reducing the federal budget deficit with an equal balance of tax increases and spending cuts, up from 32% last year. At the same time, the percentage favoring an emphasis on spending cuts is now 40%, down from 50% last year, while the percentage in favor of reducing the deficit primarily through tax increases is unchanged at 11%.
With 45% of Americans favoring an equal amount of spending cuts and tax increases, and another 11% favoring a greater emphasis on tax increases, the Nov. 9-12 USA Today/Gallup poll suggests that a majority of Americans, 56%, are now open to the idea of reducing the deficit equally or mostly with tax increases. In July 2011, 43% favored deficit reduction either equally or mostly through tax increases, and in May 48% did.
Overall, as was the case last year, most Americans — now 85% — are comfortable with achieving deficit reduction mostly (40%) or equally (45%) with spending cuts.
Blowback
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Sure.
Just so long as nobody cuts their benefits or raises their taxes.
HotAirian on November 15, 2012 at 1:03 PM
Well LIB means that they’ll be massive cuts and increases.
Illinidiva on November 15, 2012 at 1:03 PM
OK, sequestration it is then.
forest on November 15, 2012 at 1:06 PM
Then there’s no problem with the fiscal cliff.
Doomberg on November 15, 2012 at 1:07 PM
47% say balance is more free stuff.
BullShooterAsInElk on November 15, 2012 at 1:08 PM
Balanced Approach:
Let the Tax Cuts Expire.
Let sequestration happen.
Let the Treasury hit the debt ceiling, and don’t raise it.
Boom! Instant deficit reduction. To zero. And all it requires is that Congress do nothing.
Then, start the negotiations…
JohnGalt23 on November 15, 2012 at 1:09 PM
“Forty-five percent of Americans now say they favor
reducingincreasing the federal budget deficit with an equal balance of tax increases and spending cuts…”There I fixed it.
RAN58 on November 15, 2012 at 1:11 PM
I’ve decided not to put stock in polls for maybe the next century or so.
applebutter on November 15, 2012 at 1:18 PM
Testament to how good of a salesman that Obama joker is. Also a perfect demonstration why we’ve got to sell ourselves as well as attack our opponents weaknesses.
Still, not too worried. As others have pointed out, just after an election a sitting Presidents policies tend to have the highest level of support. Lets see what people think when the recession fully sets in.
WolvenOne on November 15, 2012 at 1:21 PM
Burn,baby burn. Disco Inferno
portlandon on November 15, 2012 at 1:22 PM
Tax the rich at 100%. Let it burn.
The Rogue Tomato on November 15, 2012 at 1:29 PM
Can’t these people add and subtract?
Current Obama deficit is, say, $1 trillion a year.
Revenue expected from increasing income taxes on top 2% is around $80 billion a year.
Where does the $920 billion shortfall come from?
Start picking the cuts for $500 billion, and let’s see who else gets taxed to come up with another $420 billion.
Or are we just going to put it on Obama’s credit card and pay the miniumum each year?
When I think of all the no-information, black voters who lined up at the polls for five weeks of early voting in my neck of the woods–Hamilton County, Ohio–I hope they get screwed badly in the oncoming recession.
BuckeyeSam on November 15, 2012 at 1:32 PM
Which, curiously, has little to nothing to do with a “balanced” budget.
Paul-Cincy on November 15, 2012 at 1:34 PM
But that assumes the GOP is not pushing decifits! lol. Good cop, bad cop: You push domestic spending and we will be for international spending, k? W was the worst: he was for both. O is just a Dem copy of W.
kunegetikos on November 15, 2012 at 1:39 PM
Yet another Bull chit poll – YABSP -.
Billionaires earning over 250,000? We need to ask Oblama to clarify.
dogsoldier on November 15, 2012 at 1:40 PM
Sequestration is so easy and so obvious and so right that it has no chance in a democracy.
kunegetikos on November 15, 2012 at 1:42 PM
When the GOP talks about avoiding the “fiscal cliff” they are just yammering and Demming about raising the deficit. The “conservatives” are for raising the deficit.
kunegetikos on November 15, 2012 at 1:44 PM
You know what I think we should give the people what they want. They voted for Obama and they knew he would hire taxes. So hire taxes. Maybe when peoples taxes go up they will realize all the stuff Dems promise comes at a cost.
terryannonline on November 15, 2012 at 1:52 PM
Let’s just let the Bush tax cuts expire. ALL of them. People voted to go over the fiscal cliff, it’s time to let them. We’ll get 10% budget cuts across the board and, on the upside, we’ll reduce the number of people who don’t pay income taxes.
The people voted for it. Let them feel it. In the words of H.L. Mencken:
So let’s give it to them.
Caiwyn on November 15, 2012 at 1:54 PM
Oh and hire taxes for everyone. If the middle class is gonna use all these government why not increase taxes on them too? Middle class people use social security, Medicare and now Obamacare.
terryannonline on November 15, 2012 at 1:57 PM
Ok, then let all the Bush tax cuts expire and match that with the same amount in spending cuts. That means $4.8 trillion in tax hikes over the next 10 years. Can’t wait to see people freak out over that in January.
Doughboy on November 15, 2012 at 2:00 PM
if only “the conservatives” had balls…
kunegetikos on November 15, 2012 at 2:08 PM
Did they ask Americans if they favored a balanced approach, or an Orwellian “balanced” approach (as set forth by the Dems)?
besser tot als rot on November 15, 2012 at 2:11 PM
The GOP is merely and always fighting for high-end tax cuts and using the deficit as a bogeyman to scare the peeps. Don’t be deluded.
If only they really did care about the deficit, things would be different.
kunegetikos on November 15, 2012 at 2:14 PM
I cannot completely blame conservatives for what we see them doing in D.C., info like this is push polled and presented to them as a fait accompli that ITS DECIDED. There is a media war on our thinking and they are continuously feeding OUR politicians political spin with statistics attached.
I am positive that when the same people are POLLED on what percentage of income The Rich should be expected to give to the government, they come up with some fantasy % of their income for ALL their taxes, state local, 15%SE and federal, that is lower than what people pay in total today.
Fleuries on November 15, 2012 at 2:17 PM
As for deficit reduction, I am in favor of Re-considering the Penny Mack plan again, it was the next best thing to rolling all federal spending back to 2008 levels.
And Obama needs to be made to say what was wrong with the Simpson Bowles. We want to hear from the President if he won the presidency, we want to see a budget for 2013 that can pass the House, that cuts spending and stops the fiscal cliff, and re arranges the spending to avoid bad cuts to important things in the Sequester. That is not too much to ask from the smartest man in America.
Fleuries on November 15, 2012 at 2:22 PM
Notice Obama wants double the tax revenues and no spending cuts this time around.
Sign me up to the Let it Burn club.
Chuck Schick on November 15, 2012 at 2:32 PM
In regards to letting it burn, everyone keeps pointing to California as the prophecy for things to come, yet in California they’re still going, still spending. In fact that “bullet train” (they couldn’t make it high-speed so now it’s just a regular train) is right on schedule.
If California can implement cap and trade and other harsh environmental regulations, engineer the most anti-business climate of all the 50 states and still be making plans to do even more, I’m afraid the Let it Burn theory will not produce the results people think.
Burning suggests some event or series of events where all of the predicted results become apparent to everyone in short order. That’s a fantasy that will never happen. It’s a long, slow crawl to the bottom.
Recession, decay, unemployment, could still all be blamed on Bush. In fact, that is precisely how they’ll play it because it’s the only play in their book and it seems to work flawlessly. Add in the willing accomplices of the media and there is simply no other explanation for any liberal failings other than the GOP is so bad, so incompetent, so selfish that they managed to destroy society between ’00 and ’08.
There will be no great awakening.
hisfrogness on November 15, 2012 at 2:36 PM
In other words, any bad outcomes of Democrat policies will only be packaged and sold as GOP problems and, given the outcome of this last election, it will probably work.
hisfrogness on November 15, 2012 at 2:40 PM
You can expect a last minute deal with legistlators working through the night during the holiday season (sacrificing for you proles) to save the Nation from impending financial doom.
/Brian Williams
They’re gong to go for a last minute hike of the debt ceiling to $20bn and tell you to say thank you.
/CP
CorporatePiggy on November 15, 2012 at 2:45 PM
20 trillion I mean.
But hey, it’s all funny money. Trillion, Billion, Barkzillion, – whatever.
CorporatePiggy on November 15, 2012 at 2:50 PM
We have to tax people making $250k + at 100%, because making that much money is not fair to people who make less money.
The Rogue Tomato on November 15, 2012 at 2:53 PM
Burn baby Burn!
batter on November 15, 2012 at 3:14 PM
Uh-huh. So, basically, now we know what most of the 50% who pay no federal income taxes at all, AKA Obama voters, think — tax those who already pay income taxes more.
Now what do the people who already actually pay income taxes think? And what will they think when they are told that taxing those “rich people” (AKA “someone other than me”) more, as proposed by Comrade Chairman Obama would only cover about 5% of the deficit. That leaves 45% of the deficit that must be covered by other tax increases on someone.
MathBasic arithmetic is hard, especially for Obama voters and the MSM.farsighted on November 15, 2012 at 3:23 PM
Most people are totally uneducated regarding the annual federal budget deficit, or the the national debt, and are simply unqualified to make any relevant comment on the subject.
Freddy on November 15, 2012 at 3:25 PM
Yabbut they “commented” on it anyway. On Nov. 6.
farsighted on November 15, 2012 at 6:11 PM